At first, Kate hid behind Adam, keeping one hand on his back, but as they advanced further into the maze, she relaxed a little.
“When does the shooting start?” she asked.
“As soon as you see someone from the other team,” he responded. As he said it, a guy from the other team sent a paintball whizzing by their heads.
“Duck,” Adam yelled to Kate as he returned fire and then gave chase when the opponent ran away.
Kate did her best to keep up, but was huffing and puffing when he finally stopped behind a ginormous tire.
“I forgot how much I hate running,” she panted, gulping for air. “My neighborhood walks haven’t prepared me for this. Feel free to ditch me.”
“I won’t leave my wingman,” he said seriously. “And if you’re killed, rest assured, I will avenge your death.” She laughed.
“Look out,” she screamed, looking past his shoulder. He ducked, and she raised her gun and fired, hitting the opposing team member square in the chest.
“Shit,” muttered the “dead” opponent.
“Holy crap, Kate. Nice shot,” Adam said, eyes wide in amazement.
“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” she replied, flashing him a haughty look.
She made her way past Adam and having gained some confidence, took the lead. He let her.
Before long, she was running—well, jogging. Okay, maybe a fast walk—and ducking and zig-zagging through the obstacles to get to the flag. She shot another opponent in the shoulder while on the run. It reminded her of when Lizzie would talk her into playing the video game with the badass female lead. Laura Croft? Or Craft? Didn’t matter, Kate was the badass now, kicking butt and taking names.
They ran around a corner and came face-to-face with another guy waiting to kill them. She tucked and rolled and came up firing, hitting the guy in the leg. With a curse, he left the field as she blew on the top of her gun.
“You’re amazing,” Adam said.
“Duck!” She pushed his head down and fired, killing another opponent who had come up behind them. “I told you I could shoot.”
“But I mean. You’re good. You can actually aim and hit things.”
“Oh, I have lots of hidden talents, Mr. King.”
He smiled and kissed her hard.
“You’re going to get us killed,” she said with a smile. Her arms were around his neck, still holding her gun, and she looked up in time to kill one more person over his shoulder. “Where were we?”
She kissed him back just long enough for him to get into it, and then turned on her heels and ran off. “Let’s get that flag.”
He covered her and killed two more opponents while she ran up the stairs and grabbed the flag.
“Victory,” she yelled.
“That. Was. Awesome,” he said.
“That was pretty invigorating,” she said, pulling off her helmet and trying to smooth her hair.
“You wanna play one more?”
“I’ll watch while you play one more,” she said, reapplying her lip gloss, and he laughed.
“Nah, it won’t be as much fun without you.”
“All right. My turn, then. I’d planned to get a pedicure once all the paperwork was done. You’ll love it.”
He groaned. Of course, he didn’t really want to go, but she’d played his game—no wait, she’d kicked ass at his game—now he had to suck it up and play hers.